How?
by Reichenfallen
Summary: Part 1 of The Don't Be Dead Series. Set 3 years Post Reichenbach Sherlock finally makes it back to Baker Street bruised and battered but amazingly still alive. He and John settle back into their routine safe in the knowledge that Moriarty's web is destroyed and slowly their friendship grows. (Johnlock.) In part 1 - John wants answers to how Sherlock survived & he wants them now!


**_This is my first Fanfiction so any advice or comments will be appreciated. I have actually got several Fanfic ideas for big Famfics that are 3+ stories long with 30+ chapters which I've attempted to write but so far they're still on the Prologue and I have _**_**major writers block. Anyway so I thought I'd start with a mini fic to warm up. This will be the first in the Don't Be Dead series which will be made up of 6 short stories. Most will be a few chapters long, others longer (I think the longest will be between 10+20.) I will try to update fairly regularly, I have the ideas for it pretty much set and my job gives me plenty of time to daydream for ideas it's just finding the time to jot them down. Anyway enough rambling from me. ENJOY!**_

* * *

Heal the scars from off my back

I don't need them anymore

You can throw them out or keep them in your mason jars

I've come home

All my nightmares escaped my head

Bar the door, please don't let them in

You were never supposed to leave

Now my head's splitting at the seams

And I don't know if I can

* * *

**John.**

"Doctor Watson there's a patient here for you. He's pretty banged up and could do with going to the hospital but he's insisted on seeing you." John sighed, and rubbed the palms of his hands against his eyes, he'd not been sleeping well since The Incident as he preferred to call it and he had been hoping to get an early night. "Okay Annie, send him in." John turned back to his computer to finish his last patients form. Several minutes later he heard the door squeak open and footsteps on the floorboards "Come in I'll be with you in just a second sir." He said without looking up.

"Oh that's fine, take all the time you need." replied a baritone voice. John's finger froze on the keyboard. It couldn't possibly be. He looked up, his eyes widening at the sight of the man in front of him, he was wearing a grey top and jeans underneath a green anorak of all things and at the sight of the ridiculous clothes John wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry. He was also holding himself slightly awkwardly putting all his weight on his left leg and he had his right arm held loosely against his chest with his left one. His face was covered in scratches and still healing scars and John could see faint lines across his neck that looked like he'd been strangled not too long ago. John rubbed his eyes expecting for the man to disappear any minute, either that or he'd fallen asleep at work and he'd wake in a moment to find a patient glaring at him. "Sher.. Sherlock? No.. No you can't be you're dead. I saw you fall, I saw the blood" John finally managed to splutter out.

"It was a trick, just a magic trick" came Sherlock's whispered reply and John was reminded of what he said on the roof that day.

John felt tears prick his eyes and he balled his fist. He wanted to hurt the detective like Sherlock had hurt him. Part of his mind was screaming at him that he was a Doctor and was in his office at his clinic; that if anyone saw him no matter what the prat had done he'd never be able to excuse the fact he hit a patient. He couldn't help himself though all he could see was a red mist over his eyes as he walked towards Sherlock who had dropped his arms from his chest now and was looking warily at John.

"How could you do this to me? You were my friend. My best friend! You let me think you were dead, that you'd committed suicide. I felt so guilty for so long thinking that you felt so bad and so alone that you couldn't even turn to me" John shouted punctuating each word with a punch to Sherlock's chest. Tears were running freely down his face now and his breath hitching in his chest.

John continued to hit him after the words had become blocked by a lump in his throat but soon even that stopped and he could hit him no longer. Sherlock took John's hands in his and tentatively pulled him in for a hug one hand grasped onto John's oatmeal jumper. John rested his head on Sherlock's anorak and let the sobs wrack his body, one hand grasped onto the front of the green material to make sure he was real and still there.

John lost track of how long they stood there holding onto each other. All he was aware of was the sound of the detectives heart beating through the fabric, strong and real and proof that Sherlock truly was back. He soon became aware though of the fact that Sherlock was starting to droop and he remembered the injured leg "Come on then lets have a look at you"

"John I am perfectly fine." Sherlock replied.

"I'll be the judge of that, me being the doctor and everything" John scolded. "Come over here under the light and.. Er you'd better take off that anorak and top too." Sherlock did as he was told, to John's surprise. He started by checking Sherlock's heart rate and pulse, partly for his own piece of mind, once he was thoroughly convinced that Sherlock's heart rate and pulse were normal he started examining Sherlock 's chest. There was no signs of any broken ribs thank god, in fact apart from a few healing cuts and pink marks from where John had just hit him there was no damage on his chest. The same couldn't be said for the rest of him, after a heated argument where Sherlock refused to go to the hospital for an x-ray to check his arm John put it in a sling. The leg was sprained and John wrapped a bandage tightly around it and told him that under no circumstances was he allowed to put any weight on it for at least a month. Finally he cleaned up all the small cuts on Sherlock's chest, arms and face and covered the one on his forehead with a piece of gauze.

He then stepped back and looked him over one last time. "Come on then let's go home" he said, finally satisfied that he'd done all he could. "And you can be the one to tell Mrs Hudson about your little magic trick" Sherlock's face paled at that and John had to fight back the need to laugh.

* * *

**A/N - Reviews, Advice and Tips would be extremely welcome and appreciated! **

**Song. Radical Face - Welcome Home.**


End file.
